TEHRAN
\nIran\u2019s football team will leave for Spain this weekend en route to their World Cup base in Mexico despite still awaiting visas, the head of the country\u2019s football federation said.
\nThe 2026 World Cup is being hosted jointly by the United States, Mexico and Canada.
\nNeither the United States, where Iran will play their three group stage matches, nor Mexico, where the team will be based throughout the tournament, have yet issued visas for the players.
\n\u201cWe will leave for Spain on Saturday, and from there the team will go directly to Tijuana in Mexico,\u201d football federation chief Mehdi Taj said on Monday on a sports programme broadcast on state television.
\n\u201cWe will obtain a Mexican visa tomorrow (Tuesday) or the day after, and then a US visa will be issued quickly,\u201d Taj said.
\nIran have been drawn in Group G and will play New Zealand and Belgium in Los Angeles on June 15 and 21, followed by a game against Egypt in Seattle on June 26.
\nTaj said that the outbreak of the Middle East war on February 28, when the United States and Israel attacked Iran,, \u201cchanged everything\u201d for Team Melli.
\n\u201cThe situation in the country, and especially the war, has upended all our plans,\u201d Taj said.
\n\u201cWe had arranged good warm-up matches, including one against Spain, which was cancelled\u201d in February.
\nThe Iranians relocated their World Cup base, which initially was planned to be in Tucson in the US state of Arizona, to the northwestern Mexican border city of Tijuana due to tensions over the Middle East war.
\nIran are currently preparing for the tournament in Turkey.
\nOn Friday they beat Gambia 3-1 in a friendly in Antalya, where they will play another warm-up match against Mali on Thursday.
\nTaj complained that the team\u2019s World Cup preparations had been also dogged by \u201cfinancial difficulties\u201d because of the economic crisis in the country and the sharp depreciation of the rial against the dollar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TEHRAN Iran\u2019s football team will leave for Spain this weekend en route to their World Cup base in Mexico despite still awaiting visas, the head of the country\u2019s football federation said. The 2026 World Cup is being hosted jointly by the United States, Mexico and Canada. Neither the United States, where Iran will play their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549511,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-549496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\n